Dr calls for more Nanny Statism.

Dr Matt Capehorn, who runs an obesity clinic at Rotherham in the UK, is planning to demand that allowing children to become obese be designated as an act of neglect, at the British Medical Association’s annual meeting this month. He wants social services to be able to take action against the parents.

Speaking to the BBC he said: "My colleagues and I were concerned because we noticed a discrepancy in the way society, the medical profession and the courts treat an obese child compared with a malnourished child. There is outrage if a child is skin and bone but it only happens in extreme cases with obese children."

Quite right too! Allowing a child to eat too much may be stupid, it may be weak, but it is not deliberate neglect. You might as well blame parents for neglecting anorexic children.

Kids love to eat unhealthy fattening stuff. It’s often quite a trick to keep them off of it and out playing, without having to worry about Crack SS (Social Services) units kicking your door in.

Certainly, in some extreme cases, it might amount to neglect - but it is a dangerous and worryingly authoritarian step Dr Capehorn is pushing for. Maybe he would like to turn the local authority’s anti smoking ‘police’ against evil parents buying their children a burger in the High Street, once they are up to speed…